Three Questions about Church for the NYT

One: The title of the piece is “Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes.” Question: Is “spirituality” waning?

Two: Here’s another quote:

“It’s unsettling for a movement that’s lasted 2,000 years to now find that, ‘Oh, some of the things we always assumed would connect with the community aren’t connecting with everyone in the community in the way they used to,’” said Warren Bird, the director of research for the Leadership Network, a firm that tracks church trends.

Question: Does Warren Bird think that churches have been doing things the same way for the past 2,000 years?

Three: And one more quote:

“Every generation wants their own thing,” said Houston Clark, whose company designs spaces and audiovisual systems for churches nationwide. “Kids in their late 20s to midteens now, they really crave intimacy and authenticity. They want high-quality experiences, but don’t necessarily want them in huge voluminous buildings.”

Question: So is that why at National Community Church, “Sunday services are held in six locations, mostly movie theaters, where the smell of Saturday night’s popcorn hangs in the air as prerecorded sermons play on the big screen”? Because nothing says “intimacy and authenticity” like watching sermons on movie screens in darkened rooms that smell like popcorn?

This wasn’t a hit piece by the NYT at all; nothing sneering or dismissive about it. It just made me wonder about a few things.

Hide 8 comments

8 Responses to Three Questions about Church for the NYT

My guess is that the experience of Christianity is so foreign and unknown to the NYT that it doesn’t even know the right questions to ask in response to the assertions of Warren Bird, Houston Clark, or those who say spirituality is waning. So these assertions, which cry out for pushback or clarification, are allowed to pass into the story without further discussion.

I do not think Spirituality is “waning.” It is on the rise but this is not necessarily a good thing for Christianity. Spirituality is a very vague term if only because any individual adhering to any particular belief system can possess it. For example, we could argue that Thomas Jefferson was “spiritual” because he was a Deist. Christianity needs to be concerned with Christian Spirituality. However, this is declining.

At one point in time Christianity offered the believer a literal truth. Today it offers them a “symbolic” truth. Often times when I discuss Christianity with Christians they will say something to the effect of “Oh, that is just symbolic. It did not actually happen that way.” Yet they fail to tell me what it is “symbolic” of or how they know it is “symbolic” or why nobody for roughly 2,000 years thought it was. The Christians who use the tactic think they have defended their position. The reality is that they have conceded the argument and have retreated into Agnosticism.

The result is that Christianity is becoming increasingly vague when it was once clear. Once this happens the faith just becomes a thing people do. Like men keeping their hair short and women keeping their hair long. Why do we do this? Who knows, but that is what people do.

In addition, Christians are largely ignorant of their faith. They possess little to no knowledge of the Bible or of Christianity’s history. For example, I once had to explain to a Christian the story of Job. Now, I know this an extreme example, but it does illustrate my point. Consider how many Christians today do not know about the Council of Nicaea or how many do not read the Bible.

“Symbolic” truth combined with ignorance leads to a belief in something for no real reason. More specifically, it leads to “I don’t know but it must be something.” This is how Christianity will die. Not today and not for many years but when one god means a thousand different things to a thousand people who don’t truly know what they worship or why they do it, the seeds have been sown.

What gets me is how the reasons for meeting in movie theaters seems unexplored. Why meet in a moviehouse? Because you are a new church, and don’t have a building? That seems the most likely to me, not to facilitate an intimate experience in a place not know for being able to foster too many of those. Did they think to ask? Or did the novelty of meeting in a movie theater just kinda blind the reporter to all else?

I had friends who went to such a church for a while, until they got their own land. Though they had their own pastor. Also, another church in New Orleans we went to assist was meeting in one until they were able to rebuild their building after Katrina. It’s not ideal for a church, but it’s an auditorium with some seats, which can fill the requirements of a church in a pinch.

Re: At one point in time Christianity offered the believer a literal truth.

Oh, good grief when was that? I would suggest reading the Fathers of the Church, followed by the medieval Christian mystics, east and west. The entire Old Testament was interpreted allegorically– the Arc prefiguring the Church, the Burning Bush prefiguring the Virgin Mary, etc.
Fundamentalist literalism is the bastard child of 18th rationalism, American egalitarianism, and 19th century Pietism.

JonF, I’ve read a little from the Church fathers and Christian mystics. I missed the part where they reached consensus that the entire Old Testament was allegorical, thus rendering all–or any–Scriptural narrative purely “symbolic.” Is this conclusion buried somewhere in the De Resurrectione Carnis of Tertullian?

Leaving aside that typology is formulated as an interpretive method for demonstrating the literal truth of the New Testament, and bearing in mind that allegorical prefigurement at any rate does not imply historical falsity, I’m frankly surprised to hear that typological interpretation somehow implies a purely symbolic reading of Scripture, Old or New.

In fact, considering that we see throughout Scripture an altogether separate method of metaphorical prediction known as “prophecy,” I don’t understand how the use of predictive allegory can in any way be applied to the exclusion of historical verity. I’d really appreciate some references to further reading on that, if you could so direct me.

The only appropriate way to respond to this is in the form of “Paul’s Epistle to the Regal Theaterians.” Some of you have been complaining about the projectionist… If the artificial butter flavoring on your popcorn offends your brothers … Is it appropriate to worship at screens consecrated to pornography … etc, etc

Fundamentalist literalism is the bastard child of 18th rationalism, American egalitarianism, and 19th century Pietism.

I think you’re overlooking the effect of the Reformation itself, which, by denigrating the notion of institutional mediation (in scriptural interpretation as in other matters) and elevating the idea of the individual believer reading the Scriptures for him/herself, set the stage for the emergence of fundamentalist literalism as the lowest-common-denominator interpretation that people could agree on.